Extreme Contractor

I just started work for EaseSoftware, which hires out its employees as contractors to other companies. At roughly the same time I started reading LeanThinking, a book about improving quality by simplifying product flow and emphasizing customer value -- in other words, a book on ExtremeBusiness.

Unfortunately, these two activities appear to be mutually exclusive. Contractors tend to get work on projects that are already behind schedule (that's why the contractor got pulled in!), and contractors aren't exactly in a position to tell the contractees how they should be running their software development process.

What's a budding ExtremeProgrammer to do? I've been trying to nibble out bits of quality and flow where I can, but it's not very satisfying and doesn't seem to make that much of an improvement.

-- BillTrost

See ChangeYourOrganizationTactics, ChangeYourOrganizationDiary